On Labor Day Weekend, I’m thinking about work. Most people I run into do not like their work, and they say they are afraid to make any changes. They are afraid of not finding another job, of losing health care, retirement funds, worrying about parents or relatives or kids they might have to take care of.

The Fear Machine has advanced the idea that we are lucky to have work at all, and if we know what is good for us, we will be quiet and lay low and hope for the best. We are not expected to do work we love, but to do work we can find on almost any terms. Not, I think, a great way to approach work and life. In upstate New York, I meet a lot of people who have very little money, but who love their work – small farmers, landscape workers, vets and vet techs, people who start small businesses and try and make them work.

Businesses used to pride themselves on forging loyal bonds with employees, and now they openly brag to stockholders and investors that they pay little, outsource work, an don’t offer benefits. This, I am told, is the new economy.

I have always loved my work, from my days as a reporter and political writer and media critic. Once I stopped loving that, I turned to books, fiction and non-fiction. I believe in the importance of loving what you do, and of feeling secure in the fact that you are doing something you love, which means you are apt to do it well and perhaps even successfully. On Labor Day, I commit to that and give thanks for being a writer, and I promise if I stop loving it, I will stop doing it and do something else. A quiet weekend at the farm, nothing much planned. Just got a couple of books to hole up with for the weekend with my former girlfriend.